Removal of thorns, excess foliage, or other protuberances from ornamental flowers or other plants is commonly practiced by florists prior to sale of the flower or plant. Because of the relatively large number of thorns contained on each plant stem, the rose in particular is often dethorned by a florist before sale. Although this practice reduces the chance of injury to a buyer of the rose, the florist can still be punctured or scraped by rose thorns during the dethorning process.
Manually held devices that aid the florist in dethorning roses are widely available. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,455,784 to Gallo describes a stem cleaner for cutting away thorns from a stem. The described device has a flexible handle with two free ends to which cutting blades are attached. The stem cleaner is positioned around a flower stem and moved up and down along the length of the stem to remove thorns without stripping the surface bark of the stem. However, the possibility of misplacing this device, coupled with the chance of inadvertent puncture as the grasp of florist on the stem is altered, can be disadvantageous when large numbers of roses are to be dethorned.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide a thorn stripper that aids in the removal of thorns from roses or other plants.
Another object of this invention is to provide a manually operated thorn stripper having a plurality of diversely sized cutting channels through which plant stems of various diameters can be drawn.
In accordance with the foregoing objectives a tool for removing protuberances such as thorns or foliage extending from a plant stem is provided. The tool has a first stripping arm having a first stripping edge, a second stripping arm having a second stripping edge and positioning means for positioning at least a portion of the second stripping edge of the second stripping arm at a predetermined distance greater than a diameter of the stem from the first stripping edge of the first stripping arm. The first and second stripping arms are attached to mounting means that includes a plate affixed in a desired orientation to a top or side of a base such as a floral preparation table.
In preferred embodiments the apparatus according to the present invention is utilized to dethorn roses. The apparatus has a first stripping arm configured to have a straight edge with plurality of inset channels set along the edge in spaced apart relationship. The second stripping arm is pivotally connected to the first stripping arm and provided with a plurality of channels whose size and positioning mirror those channels set into the first stripping arm. In operation, a portion of a rose stem is placed in a first channel in the first stripping arm that has a diameter slightly greater than a diameter of the rose stem to be dethorned. The second arm is pivoted about its connecting pivot to bring a second channel corresponding in size to the first channel into a position opposite the first channel. The rose stem is then longitudinally drawn through a space defined by the first and second channels, causing any protuberances from the rose stem to be torn from the stem as they contact the first or second arm. Since the first and second stripping arms are attached to a plate affixed to a table or other base, the first and second stripping arms do not rotate or otherwise move with respect to the base (other than the pivot action of the second arm) during this dethorning process.
One advantage of the present invention is the ease of stripping thorns or other protuberances from plants such as roses with minimal effort and the possibility of high repetition rates desired by commercial vendors of such plants.
Another advantage of the present invention is the reduction in chance of injury to a florist or commercial seller in the dethorning process attributable to inadvertent rotation or movement of the dethorning tool.
Still another advantage of the present invention is the reduction in the chance of damaging, cutting or gouging a plant stem during the dethorning process because of the alignment support provided by the permanently mounted dethorning tool